Federal judge allows Arizona's abortion drug law to go into effect

A federal judge announced on Monday that Arizona's restrictive abortion drug law would be allowed to go into effect and the requested injunction was not being granted.

U.S. District Judge David C. Bury noted in his ruling that the new law could increase the difficulty for some women to get an abortion, but didn't see that the rules were too restrictive, reports The Associated Press. "The court finds that the injunction is not in the public interest."

The law, which will go into effect on Tuesday, limits the use of pill-induced abortions to only the first seven weeks of pregnancy. Before, women had until the ninth week to go that route.

Planned Parenthood Arizona argued that the rules were too restrictive and could mean the closure of the Flagstaff clinic because it isn't able to do surgical abortions. Bury did acknowledge that the latter issue could be a problem.

According to Businessweek, Planned Parenthood attorney David Brown said, "This law serves no purpose other than to prevent Arizona women from using a safe alternative to surgical abortion and force their doctors to follow an outdated, riskier and less effective method."